Running head: ANALYSIS OF STUDENT WORK 1

Analysis of Student Work in Fall 2017

Jennifer Nguyen

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

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Student Background Information

For Professor Ladd’s literacy class, I worked with a little kiddo named Esther. She is a

six-year-old first grader at Paradise Elementary School. She can speak English and Spanish. She

mainly speaks Spanish at home. She lives nearby the school at home with her grandmother,

mother, and little brother. She also has other siblings that do not live there and has a lot of

cousins. She likes to watch television on PBS Kids and her favorite movie is Frozen. Her

favorite books are the Elephant and Piggie books. She has said that her brother, who is a year

older than she is, and her mother read to her from time to time. Her favorite animals are baby

tigers and unicorns and she loves to eat chicken nuggets, French fries, and cheeseburgers. She

loves to look at illustrations and she likes being read to. She also loves to draw. She prefers to

use a pen over a pencil and would rather use markers to color than crayons. She is scared to read

out loud in front of the class and even when we buddy read, she is discouraged and gets easily

frustrated. She is not afraid to say when she does not want to do the task anymore. After giving

her a primary spelling inventory test, she is an early to middle letter name – alphabetic speller.

She struggles with reading books that are meant for first graders so I wanted to read her books

that are at first grade level but buddy read or have her read easier passages. I started tutoring her

a few weeks after the semester since there was an unfortunate situation but the time spent with

her, I feel like we made some progress.

Lesson 1

Lesson 1 Description

The first lesson was focused on reading. The standards I focused on were: RL.1.3 –

Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details, RF.1.1 –

Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print, and RF.1.4.a – Read
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grade-level text with purpose and understanding. I wanted to see how much time it would take

for her to read this book, as well as how she reads and what words she may struggle with.

Student Performance

We read Go Otto Go for our first lesson. Esther did not know how to pronounce Otto but

had struggled to read the book. I think it was a part of her background of not reading on her own

much and how she prefers to be read to rather than read out loud. I had allotted five minutes for

this to be done but after five minutes, she was asking for assistance while reading. I had noticed

that while reading the book, she would use tracking but hold the book sideways. She would also

sound out the letters and try to blend them when she would not know a word. When she finally

reached the end, I had read the book to her once more and just asked her questions such as who

the main character was and what was he trying to do.

Initial Teaching Strategy

The strategy I used when she was reading was no opt out from Doug Lemov. No opt out

is “turning “I don’t know” into success by telling them they can get it right if they keep trying

(Lemov, 2015). She would ask for assistance while reading but I would ask her to try to sound

out the word or use what she knows.

Re-teaching Strategy One

Excavate error is something I used. Excavate error is digging into the errors, studying

them efficiently and effectively, to better understand where the students struggle (Lemov, 2015).

I made note of words that she struggled with and went over them with her afterwards. I had

written them down on a card and asked her to practice with them. This is something that I saw

my mentor teacher in practicum do with her kids.

Re-teaching Strategy Two

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Plan for error is a different strategy that I used next with her. We tried to read a book

called I’m a Frog! by Mo Willems. I knew that she would not be able to read words on the page.

I had written down a few words that I thought she would struggle with.

Re-teaching Strategy Three

Every minute matters uses every minute productively and respecting their time (Lemov,

2015). I felt like I was not getting enough time with her so each time I met with her, we started

right away. I brought books that were her level.

Strategy Chosen

I continued to use no opt out because she easily got frustrated when she did not know

something and I wanted her to keep trying. She said, “I don’t know this word” a lot and I wanted

her to try to get that out of her vocabulary. I would ask her to please try whatever it is and this

helped her. She eventually would want to try to read books to me and we would dive right in.

Re-teach with New Strategy

After trying these different strategies, I had her read Go Otto Go again. This time, she did

much better. It was not perfect but she did much better.

Reflection

I feel that using no opt out was the best because of how easily she would get frustrated. I

remember when I was younger and easily gave up on things but I do not want that for Esther.

She was not at her level of reading but I think her continuously trying new words would help her

become a better reader. Also taking the words she does not know home can help her practice

with memorization of the words. She would learn different words each time we met and add

those words to her vocabulary instead of, “I don’t know.”

Lesson 2
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Lesson 2 Description

After giving her the primary spelling inventory, I saw that she was an early to middle

letter name-alphabetic speller. This allowed me to see what kinds of words we should focus on. I

gave her words that had b-d to work on her reversal and added some words with blends and

digraphs. The standards I aligned this with was: RF.1.2.a – Distinguish long from short vowel

sounds in spoken single-syllable words and RF.1.2.c – Isolate and pronounce initial, medial

vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in spoken single-syllable words. We started off with

spelling CVC words. I had letters cut out for her and used words like ‘mad’ and ‘bad’. I did not

provide all twenty-six letters but just letters that I knew she would use. We continued to do this

with different spelling words.

Student Performance

With the first time of spelling words, she was able to spell the words I had given her. I

gave her about 20 words. She had struggled with b-d since they were lowercase letters and not

uppercase, but she did well overall. While doing this, she would relate some of the words with

her everyday life. She would also relate the words to what she heard in the classroom and was

excited to share words like this.

Initial Teaching Strategy

Since we were unable to help them with the primary spelling inventory, I started off the

without apology technique (Lemov, 2015) I knew that she would ask for assistance with spelling

words. I told her beforehand that if she made mistakes, it is alright and we would work on it

together. I noticed that she does not like to disappoint and observes to see if she doing the correct

task or getting the right answer or not.

Re-teaching Strategy One

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I used post it to display our objective to let her know that we are working on

distinguishing long from short vowel sounds. I asked her to spell words lie bid and hid and rid,

then added an e to the end of the word. I asked her to say the word now and explained to her that

adding the -e changes the sound.

Re-teaching Strategy Two

I used warm/strict technique. I wanted to be “warm and strict at the same time to send a

message to high expectations, caring, and respect” (Lemov, 2015). I wanted her to know that we

were working on these spelling words because they are words that will come up quite a bit.

When working on spelling some words, I would let her tell me about the words she is relating

them to.

Re-teaching Strategy Three

I used precise praise as the final strategy to use positive reinforcement (Lemov, 2015). I

did this to not discourage her from trying to spell words. When she tries to sound out words, I let

her know that she is doing a good job and she should always continue to try her best.

Strategy Chosen

I liked to use the warm/strict technique. I wanted her to feel as comfortable with me as

possible and let her know that it is okay to make mistakes since she is just a little one. As a

teacher, I feel that we want the kids to come to us when they have issues or are feeling frustrated.

The time they have with us should be a safe place.

Re-teach with New Strategy

I think that using the warm/strict technique was best for Esther. I spelled the words with

her and we practiced with each time we met. I gave the spelling test again and she did better with

her words. I went over them with them once more and told her she was progressing.
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Reflection

It made me so happy to see the words she got wrong the first time with the test spelled

correctly. I think that working with spelling each meeting helped her. It only made me wish that I

had even more time with her to see her progress further. The strategies I had used were not bad

and I like that there are multiple strategies I can use to help with this. Learning new words right

away is not going to change overnight so I see that with time, it is rewarding to see progression.

Lesson 3

Lesson 3 Description

I wanted to see if she was able to write sentences so I journaled with her. The standards I

followed were L.1.2 – Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English

capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing. I wanted to see what she could do first so

I just asked her to write me a sentence.

Student Performance

I asked her to write ‘My pet dog is ___.’ She wanted to write about playing in the grass

though. I said that was fine. She wrote, “I like to play in the gras.” She had just one error. For the

next sentence, I asked her to write about whatever she wanted. She wanted to write, “My pet

kitty Jesse is playing with me.” She actually wrote, “my pet cite Jese is plaen plaen wif me”. She

made a lot more mistakes.

Initial Teaching Strategy

I used positive framing to guide her to do better work while also motivating and inspiring

her (Lemov, 2015). I gave her sentence structures and let her add in her own words in the end. I

gave her a sentence: My favorite food is ____. She added that she loves chicken nuggets, French

fries, and burgers. She wrote it as: chikinugits ad fracfris brgr.

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Re-teaching Strategy Onev

I used format matters for her to get used to writing sentences with a capital in the

beginning and make sure there was a period at the end. When she makes mistakes, we go over it

in the end.

Re-teaching Strategy Two

I used do now as we met each week and gave her sentence structures and let her complete

the sentence. I started to do it before we would start reading.

Re-teaching Strategy Three

Last strategy I used was name the steps. We broke down the tasks into steps and worked

towards writing sentences. I broke it down as using capitals for each sentence. Then, we worked

on using punctuation at the end, which was a period in this case. With the words that she spelt

wrong, I just told her how to spell it for next time.

Strategy Chosen

I liked the positive framing and continued to use that for our journaling. I would give her

a sentence structure and then ask her to write a sentence on her own. We would discuss first what

she would want to write down.

Re-teach with New Strategy

Using the framing was good for her because she was able to see the beginning of a

sentence, some words that she did not know how to spell, and punctuation at the end. When she

would write her own sentences, she did not forget the capital letter and the punctuation.

Reflection

For our second to last time together, I asked her to write a sentence. She started with a

capital letter and ended it with a period. I think her spelling will still take a lot of work and I
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know with practice, she will get better. She had written “I pla wif my frens and my fame babe

budd and babe siste.” She meant to write, “I am playing with my friends and my baby brother

and baby sister in the park.”

Future ASW Application

I think reflecting on what I have been doing this semester with my tutee and checking to

see if this technique works or that technique works is good practice. When I have my own

classroom in the future, I will have to use many techniques to see what works the best with the

students. There will be more than one student in the class so I will need as much practice as I

can. Reflecting on the techniques is also beneficial for myself because of I can practice with

them. Sixty-two techniques are way too many techniques to try out and now that there is

Pinterest and an abundance of teach websites, it feels like there is really no time to try it all out. I

think that being able to practice this stuff now is a step towards the right direction. I was nervous

with even teaching my first lesson and I was hard on myself for making mistakes. My mentor

teacher reminded me though that I am a beginner and things take time to get used to. All

beginning teachers make mistakes and we just have to learn from them. In the beginning, I was

dreading this assignment. It looked like way too much information that I had to do and I did not

understand. I was already stressed and I did not even know why. As the semester went on and I

spent more time with my tutee, I had to ask myself if what I was doing was working. This helped

me see that. Re-teaching is something that teachers must do anyway. It helps growth in teacher

and the student. I will continuously look at my Lemov strategies and see what I can use in the

future class. I have found many that I would want to try for different subjects, such as math or

science.

Philosophy of Teach, Check, Re-teach, Recheck

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My philosophy on teach, check, re-teach, and recheck, is that we must do it. As a future

teacher, I know that we must constantly reflect after teaching. Even after finishing my three

lessons in my practicum, I instantly reflected about them as soon as I released the kids to line up

for their lunch. When we teach, we are trying multiple strategies. As we know, kids are not alike

as learners. They are all unique individuals who learn differently and come from different

backgrounds. We must see what works and help them move forward to the next grade and have

them at the level they should be at. Student achievement is the rewarding part. Even with my

tutee or students in my practicum class, seeing them do better than a couple months ago warms

my heart. I have spoken to many teachers that say seeing their growth is the most rewarding

thing. Re-teaching them a lesson with a different technique is what helps with the growth. When

we can finally find something that works, we can continue to use it with the student to make sure

they are continuously growing. By trying the techniques and constantly assessing the students,

will only help ensure that we are reaching the objectives. Practicing this with my tutee did this

for me. Though I wish I could spend the entire year with her, seeing the little progress we have

made is awesome. It also has given me actual experience with what my career will be. I have

only observed classes four different times before this semester. Even then, we were only there

for a short amount of time. I am seeing the behind the scenes of being with students and it is

enjoyable. Using the teach, check, re-teach, recheck is one of the tasks that will help me be better

and do better.
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References

Lemov, D. (2015). Teach like a champion 2.0: 62 techniques that put students on the path to
college. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.